


The Game

by RaphaelArchie



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Gen, Idiots in Love, James T. Kirk & Nyota Uhura Friendship, M/M, Neither of these idiots have actually done anything about it, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Humor, Side Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 09:16:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16489838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaphaelArchie/pseuds/RaphaelArchie
Summary: While Jim lies desperately ill, and while Bones keeps his almost constant vigil, Nyota joins him for a late night bottle of whiskey, and encourages him to open up about something she has suspected for a long time about his and Jim's relationship.





	The Game

**Author's Note:**

> So. I have included the tag "Side Story" because it is intended that this fic can be read as a side-along to WIP To See What You See. That Bones has utterly and completely lost his heart to Jim is (I hope!) evident in that fic, but I have always tried to write it as fairly neutral as regards the exact nature of that love. It is alluded to there from time to time that Bones and Jim might be something more, but I've always wanted it to be up to the reader, and that is how that fic will well and truly stay! I also don't want to overwrite anyone for whom Jim/Spock is the more important relationship. 
> 
> However. IF anyone does want to read that fic as basically outing Bones and Jim, well.....here is Bones doing that for them himself. In detail. To Nyota. Like a total schoolgirl. This scene would go in TSWYS somewhere in the time between the end of chapter 17 and the beginning of chapter 19. 
> 
> And for anyone who doesn't want to think that this is the case... as you were! 
> 
> xxx

Nyota laughs quietly in the blueish black light of the little room, and once more reaches across the table for the whiskey.

Bones watches the movements of her hand, and tries not to wish that the bone structure he was watching grasp the tumbler was Jim’s, that the tendons and veins he sees moving beneath her perfect skin were those of Jim’s body, that the cuff that framed her wrist was gold and not red....

He loves Nyota deeply. She is a friend and a sister to him, and often, purely because of her nature, something like a mother; she is wise, and strong, and independent, and _fierce_ , and gentle…and kind. She is, he has always known (and so has Jim) simply astonishing. And he has more respect for her than he has for the majority of men that he has ever met – with the exception of his immediate circle of Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and (as his face cannot belie his current thoughts, his brain secretly performs a perfect grumpy eye roll on its behalf) Spock.

He doesn’t count Jim. What he feels for Jim is not respect. It is something close to worship, and he feels that it may be wrong, and he must never but never give this away (well…..there are certain times when being on his knees... _NO! His brain says. Ladies present. You’re a gentleman. Pull yourself together._ )

Yes, Nyota is a marvel. But she is not Jim. Jim is lying only feet away, just outside the door to this room – Bones’ quarters – in the biobed closest to Bones’ immediate access. As long as Bones remains vigilant, he can still just hear the steady signals of Jim’s biomonitors, Leonard’s only tangible connection to the lifeforce still contained within the vessel that had once moved and laughed and loved under the command of James Tiberius Kirk. Jim is, for the time being, so far removed from them, despite his apparent physical proximity. And it kills Bones every time this mocking fact presents itself to his mind.

But he and Nyota have already drunk just enough, and he misses Jim just that bit too much, that the conversation that is about to unfold is not only given ample opportunity and room, but is even beckoned in through the front door of The Drunk Friends’ Ubiquitous Conversations Hotel. Stay for a night, barely remember anything but faintly regret everything the next day, struggle to find your way out, vaguely appreciate that this might have been really nice if the circumstances were a bit different.

He wants her to ask.

"Leonard" Nyota says softly. “Please know that whatever the answer to my next question is, I will only be happy if you are happy. I just….feel as though this will help to know how to support you….at the moment. You are more than welcome to not answer, if you don’t want to, or feel it isn’t appropriate”.

She pauses here, and Bones recognises an element of her professional Communications Officer expression on her face. She is wondering about the best kind of language to use. Yes, Leonard thinks, for the millionth time that night. Nothing short of a total marvel. 

Then,

“Are you and Jim…"

She pauses one last time.

"…Are you sleeping together?”

So she’s opted for the most direct route. Bones hides a grin, and mentally high fives her. Then he turns his attention to the question itself.

As he had known it was coming, it was no shock. And as it was no shock, he allowed a natural answer to come to him, rather than leaping forwards with what he felt he ought to say.

And as that answer came, he couldn’t help the reflective smile that accompanied it. And the history behind it.

Even before he was really aware of having formulated the words, he began to speak. 

“Well…..” He flexes his fingers on the table, and leans slightly towards the door to briefly check that there are no other sounds relating to Jim’s condition that he might be missing, now that his attention has been elsewhere for more than five seconds. He had no idea, until he started, just how much he wanted to tell someone about this. Even if he had had reservations about revealing this aspect of his - of his and Jim's - life, he doubted that he could stop now. 

“There was this particular night, second year at the academy…”

Immediately, but subtly, and non-reactively, Nyota leaned forwards and refilled his glass. God love this wonderful woman.

“We’d had such a great night out – just some local bars etc. We went out just the two of us, and people came and went throughout the evening…I think we saw you, actually, at one point. But it was just us that went home. We were doing that a lot by then. Going home together. We’d get terrible take away on the way, make terrible decaf coffee when we got home, and drag one of the duvets off one of the terrible beds, and get under it together on the sofa."

He looked down at his hands. Nyota waited patiently, and when he chanced a glance up at her, her smile was so loving that Leonard could have cried. He swallowed, and sought words for the next phase.

"We…..we touched a lot. Not like _that_ , but then…not _not_ like that. Never anywhere hugely intimate. But at the same time, I wouldn’t have let anyone else in the world touch me how he did. It was sort of…..He just….Well he just put his hands where he liked. There didn’t seem to be any boundaries. In either direction".

He cleared his throat. 

"So, yeah, this one night, we were under the duvet, and Jim was leaning in on my chest, like he did when we were just watching the holoscreen - and his hand went just a bit lower than usual…. and I moved. As in, I moved _not_ away. And…..well it just happened from there".

Nyota sees that Leonard’s pupils are as dark and as wide as the space outside these window. She smiles to herself. He needs to talk about this. More than he knows. For more reasons than he knows.

He’s stopped, and she encourages him, gently. But on terms that will make him think they’re hers, rather than it being for his sake.

“You can’t stop there Leonard”, she says, with a soft laugh. “You’re one of my best friends, and this has been the shittest couple of months I can ever remember. At least tell me the rest of what is clearly going to be a great story!”

He takes a deep breath, and throws any remaining prudence (or sense of professionalism) to the wind. He’s waited eight years to tell someone about this. He had alluded to it with his mother, who annoyingly cast surreptitious and amused glances their way every so often whenever Jim came to Georgia with Bones for the holidays and they went anywhere near each other that wasn’t strictly on the outside of a two meter radius. Not only as if she knew they were sleeping together, but as if she thoroughly approved, and was only waiting for the two of them to get their acts together and actually admit that it was more than just casual play. Bones had wanted to say to her, one night after six too many whiskeys, “yes, Mama, Jim and I are fucking sometimes – and do you know what, I had absolutely no idea that sex like it even existed. He makes me come so hard that if I’m drunk I’ll be sober by the end of it – or vice versa. I want him all the time, and the more I have him, the worse it gets". Fortunately he had always managed to avoid giving in to the temptation to say this. Although it was probably more fortunate for his own sake than for his mother’s – Leonard had always been under the distinct impression that Eleanora McCoy was a darker horse than anyone thought. She’d probably give them tips.

He puts this aside in his mind and continues. And it is here he realises that, for the first time in what feels like his lifetime, he is talking with a smile.

“I mean, _fuck_ , Nyota", he gives a breath of laugh. "I don’t even know how to describe what it was like. People say about “mind-blowing sex..... Well. _Mind_. _Blown_. Like, ALL over the fucking shop. For _days_ afterwards. I had the worst shag flashbacks”.

He shakes his head and laughs properly. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this".

Then, more seriously - 

“But it was like we’d been doing it forever. We just….fit. Like…. _really_ …fit. Then we woke up in the morning, had a cuddle as we usually did if we'd fallen asleep in one or the other's bed, and went about with our day as usual. Nothing awkward, or wrong. Nothing more right, in fact. We didn’t even talk about it. We sort of didn’t need to”.

Bones inhales half of his whiskey. His face remains intent now.

“Then it happened again a couple of days later. Then again. And again. One day- three times in one morning. Like, before lectures even started. I was always thinking, does he want this, is this ok, is this…then I’d realise that, basically he was giving me a fair amount to evidence to say that this was his idea, and I’d forget about those questions, and just.... Well. We both learned a lot". He smirks, and Nyota giggles quietly. 

“How did you realise that he was giving you that evidence?” she then asks, chin resting on her hand. She wants to draw him out.

He looks up at her, deadpan.

“Well, for example - the first time I had true enlightenment about that he was straddling me. Naked".

Nyota's face gives a tremor that she almost hides behind her glass. Leonard sees the mirth, and allows it to her. God knew, they had laugh sometime in this vortex of a nightmare that had become their lives. So he decides upon - 

"And another particular time, I think maybe the next day, was when I pointed out that I was still in my medic uniform, and he made me keep it on".

Nyota can no longer help it, and she snorts into her whiskey. Bones smiles. Mission accomplished. 

“I’m sorry, Leonard”, she whispers, once she has regained herself. “I just…” She put a hand to her heart. She was desperate to make him see that she wasn’t mocking. “I just love this. Please carry on”.

“Well actually", he says, "it went quiet after a few months. It was near exam season, I was in labs 18 hours a day, Jim was coaching and tutoring and aiding and doing everything else that shouldn’t be humanly possible to achieve while also studying himself and being a pretty great day to day person. We saw each other as much as possible, everything else was the same. But I think….I think it was just enough to be together, at that time. Then, though….."

Nyota props her chin on her hand again, and watches the smile creep across her friend's handsome face. She loves these boys more than she could ever tell them.

"Then one day he stopped me in the kitchen while I was in the middle of making dinner, and blew me until I couldn’t stand up. Then the little git finished off cooking, and fucking well served me with dinner!”

They both laugh now. It is just so ultimately, blindingly, and piercingly Jim that it is impossible not to react as if he was actually in the room with them.

Bones refills their glasses again.

“Obviously, I wanted to get him back”, he says, coyly. He laughs again. “So I gave him a torturously slow hand job under the desk during a lecture”.

“I _knew_ it!!!” Nyota suddenly exclaimed, half leaping to her feet. “I KNEW that was what you were doing! We were sitting a few rows back and I told Gaila and she was having none of it, even though she could see just as well as I could! She pointed out that you’re right handed – “

“Did you point out that I’m a surgeon?”

“YES!!!”

Nyota’s excitement over having been validated in this belief was, Leonard thought, just so charming. He smiled at her, as she bounced in her seat.

“That’s precisely what I said!”

“What did she say to that?”

“She said (here Nyota does a not unkind but accurate impression of her friend), “Well one hand has still got to hold the instruments, Nyota”, and I told her, (she puts her hands on her hips) “ _exactly_ ”.

Leonard laughed, properly.

“Well played”.

“Anyway”, she says. She clears her throat and sits back down, composing herself back to her usual poise. “Do go on”.

They smile at each other, and another bottle has found its way onto the table. Leonard was now remembering with vivid certainty.

“He got me back for the lecture incident in the shower the next day. ….Then it really was a game”. He gives a shudder. “I got him in a side street on our way home from a bar one night. Lifted him straight against the wall – “

_Leonard pulling Jim's shirt off to expose him all the more, the shadows illuminating the soft roundness of his biceps and chest. Jim's skin gleaming half in gold from the street lamp, half in blue from the moon. The way he relaxed straight around Bones' waist when Bones lifted him, got between his legs. The way he pressed his back flush to the wall so as to help Bones keep him there. How he used one hand to help Bones undo his own belt and trousers, and how he shoved Bones' own clothes down from his hips. How he let Bones tilt to get the angle, how he let him lower him down, then push up into him. His fingers gripping Bones' shoulders, his face in Bones’ neck, breath hot and fast, his rough chant of ‘harder, Bones, harder, faster, harder’, his length rock hard against Leonard's stomach… Then, after the one short minute it took them both to reach that point, how he'd put his mouth to Bones’ ear and whispered 'next time, I'm inside you, Leo" and that name - there was no precedent for it being a kink, it was simply that it came from Jim's lips at that moment - had Bones coming so hard that his limbs were flooded with an instant weakness that almost made him lose his grip on Jim. And Jim came immediately after him, Leonard's pulsing inside him causing him to throw his head back and yell, Bones' hand wrapped around him, sliding in the thick fluid now pouring down Jim's shaft... How Bones had lowered him gently and dropped his forehead to Jim's shoulder and they'd laughed as they dressed, and Jim said "thought you were taking that round didn't you, old man", and Bones had known he had entirely lost, and that it had been one thousand percent worth it._

"I think Pike might have seen us because he said something to Jim the next day about friction burns and laughed when I choked on my beer".

Nyota shook her head in gleeful disbelief.

"So how did he get you back for THAT one?? she asks. 

Bones doesn't miss a beat. 

"Well he left it a fortnight, then caught me off guard and cable tied me to the headboard. He then left a message with my lab partner asking him to ring me. When Johnny rang - about two hours later, mind - Jim had made sure I was...already in a fairly delicate state. He then answered the phone and held it to my ear with one hand while....well, while the other was busy elsewhere. I was literally on the phone. You know. _When_ ".

"He won then?"

Leonard smiled. 

"He always wins". 

A companionable silence rested between them for a few minutes then. Each finished what they knew had to be their last glass of the whiskey. Nyota was due on shift in a few hours. Bones' shift - at Jim's side down here in the medway - never ends. He already knows he is drinking too much. Just because he has not been drinking alone this particular evening does not rectify all of the other evenings. Or days. 

At length, Nyota stretches across the table, and gives a small sigh of what could be happiness, if it were not for the fact that none of them are truly happy at the moment, and doubt that they ever will be again. But just to hear even this small sound of human normality is a balm to Leonard's aching soul. In a rush of affection for her, and in a sudden panic at the idea that she is about to walk away, and leave him once more with his own solitary suffering, he reaches for her hand. She takes it immediately, warm and firm. Then she leans in. 

 

"So what about now, Leonard?" she asks. "You and Jim, now. Do you still play the game?"

Tears have come to Leonard's eyes, and he makes no attempt to hide them as he looks down at their joined hands. 

"We still do what we were doing...." A tear from each eye falls simultaneously, and Nyota puts her other hand across the top of his. Holding him as far as she knows he will let her. "Only it stopped being a game a long time ago".

He looks up at her now, and she nods, face serious. 

"You know why that is, Leo, yes?" she asks, watching him carefully. "You realise why it's still going on but it's no longer a game?"

He nods.

"It's the real thing, my love", Nyota whispers gently, giving his hand a small shake between her own. "You and Jim, it's so clear". Her own tears are falling now, but she smiles through them, as Leonard smiles through his own, a smile that is torn upwards through pain and confusion and forced outwards nonetheless. Sometimes the most painful of smiles. Sometimes the most liberating. "I know that every moment of every day right now you are afraid he is going to let you go. But I don't think he will. And when he comes back, you have to tell him. Okay? Tell him what you probably should have told him back in the Academy. Make it real - all those games, all those times you played at it. Neither of you are playing anymore, and you know that. So does he. So tell him. Okay?"

"...Okay".

 

"Okay".

 

They are quiet for a few moments, then with a final squeeze to Bones' hand, Nyota stands and picks up her jacket. She moves around the table towards the door, stopping to kiss Leonard's cheek on the way. Suddenly, and in an action that took them both by surprise, he pulls her into a hug. Nyota returns it warmly, and they stand like that for a while, safe in one of humanity's simplest moments - safe, just for a short while longer, from the reality that awaits them outside of it. 

Finally, she steps away and goes to the door. As she turns the handle though, she looks back over her shoulder with something of a different expression. It is positively wicked. 

"Then once you've done that, I'd go back to the games again if I were you". She winks, and Bones laughs. 

"You'll never look at my medic uniform in the same way again", he remarks, dryly. 

"Or call you 'Leo', apparently!" 

And with that, she leaves, their shared laughter their parting exchange carrying them back to their respective roles in this trauma - Nyota to her quarters for the short time before Alpha shift, and Leonard back to the side of the man who had been his nemesis in some of the, quite frankly, best games he had ever played in his life. 

The side of the man he loved. 


End file.
